


A Man Who Follows Rivers

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Character Study, End of season one, F/M, Feelings, Grief, Older man, Vanessa/sir malcolm, hurt comfort, malnessa, younger woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 07:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: Dressed in black and stealthy as a jaguar, Vanessa crept to the parlor’s threshold. She watched Sir Malcolm’s hands move over his things. He’d not noticed her apparition. She’d always been able to move silently like that, or so it seemed. She watched his strong, square fingers at work; fingers that so recently had pulled a trigger and ended one life so he could claim hers.





	A Man Who Follows Rivers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladystardust79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladystardust79/gifts).



It was early for brandy, but needs must.

His thumb worked the ridges cut in the crystal tumbler. He sipped without really tasting as he considered the wall. His wall of thriving ambition and colonial conquest. Had he made any progress on its disassembly? It seemed not. Setting the glass back on his desk, he returned to his task at hand.

It was taking him much longer than it ought, like a man who lay dying but did not quite breathe his last and kept everyone waiting, on expectant tenter hooks, while he gasped and wheezed. With each death rattle, all in the room would jump only to settle back and wait even longer. He’d had an uncle who’s expiration had been so protracted. It was much less traumatic and much more tedious in the end, when at last the end did come.

And the end. . .  
. . . it always did come.

Strangely, the disassembly of his life’s passion hardly seemed more now than nuisance. As with watching any drawn out death, he’d made his peace, said his farewells, and found he had tired of waiting for the final exhalation, for the surgeon to come and place coins over the deceased’s eyes while women wailed.

He supposed he could have had Sembene do it, or at least enlisted his help, but Sir Malcolm needed distraction, and solitude. He needed for his hands to be busy in something.

Perhaps he simply needed.

Such a filthy thing, need. It collected in him like silt in the delta of a river, clouding his vision and judgement. It filled his ears and burned in his nostrils. It scratched the back of his throat; regardless of how much he drank, he could not swallow it down.

Dressed in black and stealthy as a jaguar, Vanessa crept to the parlor’s threshold. She watched Sir Malcolm’s hands move over his things. He’d not noticed her apparition. She’d always been able to move silently like that, or so it seemed. She watched his strong, square fingers at work; fingers that so recently had pulled a trigger and ended one life so he could claim hers.

She winced as she heard and heard again the shot echo.

For a fraction of a second, his eyes had flashed between her and Mina as they fell in their heap of skirts onto the dusty floor of the Grand Guginol. And then the deed was done.

He’d not been able to face Vanessa after he’d done it. Ever the hunter, he’d not torn his eyes from his fresh kill, only this time it was less to brand pride and conquest on his mind, but to ink for himself every detail of the lascivious, gory torture. He painted it on the smooth surface inside his skull in Mina’s crimson blood. As though he’d ever forget.

Because he’d not even for a moment considered Vanessa’s face, he did not see the shocked confusion cast over her features, violet eyes wide with the horrible realization of not only what he had done, but what he had said.

In the stillness that followed the echo of his precise shot, Vanessa almost believed he would then turn his weapon on her. He’d said only hours earlier her life was worth nothing more than her ability to connect him to his daughter. As his daughter lay lifeless beneath the proscenium, it made sense he might desire to claim Vanessa’s blood as well, but he lowered his hand. As he did so, inch by inch, Vanessa was able to translate his words, to make sense and clarity, syllable by syllable.

 _I already have a daughter_.

He’d said that. He did. She’d heard it, even as she couldn’t make sense of it.

Still he did not look at her. Even as her breath and heart raced beneath the thin veil of flesh covering her chest, she could not catch his eyes.

He had not been able to look at her since.

She imagined he might never look at her again.

She accepted this fact as she rode waves of sorrow that tore at her chest in the same place his bullet had pierced Mina’s.

She watched over him. She ignored the desire for his eyes to find hers, that she might know again the echo of ocean in his gaze instead of gunfire in her ears.

With careful, almost tender fingers, he removed a section of map from his wall of glory. He traced a tip of a finger over something- a mountain range or a river perhaps? He gazed at it with eyes full of some emotion Vanessa could not quite discern. Was it longing? Could it have been despair? Did he feel regret course deep within him? It seemed to be none of those things, so she finally landed on grief and stayed with that feeling. It was what the house was filled with, after all.

Grief and silence.

He folded the paper and placed it among its brethren on his desk. The pages rustled the soft rhythm of maps he knew so well. For a time he lost himself in the cadence of a flattened land, singing him a hushed song of memory. It was fading, and fast. How deafeningly loud it seemed when he lifted his glass, swallowed, and disrupted what had become a Gregorian chant in his mind. It made no sense. He was not a religious man, and the maps of a pagan continent would not be humming Latin tunes of the church. Perhaps he was losing his mind. Perhaps it was already lost. He patted the pile down, shook his head.

Again, silence.

And in the moment of stillness that followed, came memory of what he was doing and why, coupled with the blade of anguish. The searing recollection of Mina’s ink-black eyes taunting him as she swept her tongue over Vanessa’s neck and spoke of her master. _There had been no other option_. This chant now filled his head. _There had been no other option_. His fingertips found his eyes and rubbed before picking up his drink and draining it.

A man who followed rivers, he’d followed this one to its wretched, bitter end.

At the swish of her skirt, he looked up and regarded her. He was not surprised so much as relieved to find her standing there, and felt a softening flow throughout his body. In a fragile truce, they paced toward one another, their bodies reversing the stand-off that had held them so long at bay.

“You were right,” he sighed. “I was never going to go to Africa. More foolishness on my part. I see it now. How cruel wisdom is when it comes so late, and at so steep a price.”

“I can not bear to hear you blame or berate yourself,” Vanessa whispered. “Not now.” She stumbled into his eyes and was quite swept under by a large and sudden wave as an unsuspecting child might have been. It quite stole her breath. It was initially shockingly cold, and frightened her to feel his eyes so intently upon her after their abrupt absence, but she found herself warming within a moment, acclimating, as it were, to their sorrowful and misty vulnerability.

He continued. “Hear it you must, my dear,” he shook his head at her. “It was wrong of me to blame you. What kind of a man does such a thing, blames a child for his own downfall? Vanessa, I. . .” his voice faltered. He pulled on his vest and forced himself to straighten. “You stood on a darkened precipice of an abyss with every force of evil pulling you in, and yet you were strong enough to hold your ground. How frightened you must have been! And I, a grown man, for all my bluster and bragging of bravery would have been more than willing to push you straight into the pit would it have granted my heart’s desire. In my desperation to follow a thing to its conclusion, I was ruthless and there is no greater weakness, I have found. For all my exploration, this stone sour truth is my greatest and final discovery.”

She considered his words and replied, “Both of us would have stopped at nothing to bring Mina safely home. I can not and will not believe there was weakness in that. Not for either of us.”

“I do not deserve your grace,” he exhaled. Again he shook his head and this time rubbed his face with his hands in a gesture Vanessa found nearly childlike.

“But please accept it anyway,” she said. “And I will accept yours.” It was the closest either of them came to apology or forgiveness. She reached for one of his hands and took it in hers. In all their time residing together under the roof of Eight Grandage Place, it was the first of such a gesture. His hand was softer than she expected, or remembered, and it returned a gentle pressure when she squeezed it. She smiled weakly at him.

He looked around the room and said, “It will look rather empty in here without all of my gear. Shall we get a Christmas tree? Would you like that?”

Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “You expect me to stay on?”

His shoulders rose and then fell in a shuddering breath. “Oh, Vanessa, you would leave me then?” He let her hand go and paced back to his desk. He found his glass empty and poured more brandy into it from the decanter he’d left on a nearby shelf. “Of course you would want to leave. It was our arrangement. And I’ve not been pleasant or kind to you during your time here. I’ve given you no cause to stay. My assumption was brazen.” He attempted to resume his attention to the charts, but his hands shook. In his haste, he knocked a pile of books off of his desk. Vanessa rushed forth to assist him. They crouched to the floor to collect the books and she put her hands on top of his on the pile they made.

He felt her fingers, soft and cool as satin, alight upon his rough, heated knuckles. He admired how white and slim her hands were on him.

“Of course I will stay,” she whispered.

Only then did he look at her, truly look at her, and see in her eyes the surprise and awe and sorrow.

To many, she’d seemed mysterious and opaque, but to him, oh, to him. . . he could always say he knew her. Even when he hated her to her marrow, he could say he knew her well, possibly better than anyone.

“It is more than I’ve a right to ask,” he said. His voice was soft and shook. He placed one of his hands on top of hers, and every nerve in the pads of his fleshy palm exalted in the sensation of her cool skin warming to his touch.

“You are not asking, and I am offering freely. Think not on it again,” she said and tried again to smile. They rose and placed their books on the edge of his desk. “I believe I would like a Christmas tree. It has been so many years since I have had one. And we can have our boys come over to help us decorate,” she offered. A single tear escaped her eye and slid down the slope of her cheek.

That single tear was more than he could bear.

He’d shed raging rivers of furious tears in the days that followed the slaughter at the theater, but he had not allowed himself to weep from any place within himself of vulnerability or anguish. And god help his selfish heart, he had not even thought for a moment about how Vanessa must have suffered to have her childhood love shot and killed in her arms. Maybe a part of him had not cared at the time, but he found he cared now.

He stroked the tear off Vanessa’s cheek with his thumb and as he did, he felt his heart crumble. It turned to ash that filled his lungs and choked him completely. He gasped for air as his body seized in a sob. Before he knew what was happening, she collected him to her. Her frail arms held him fast. He felt her breath on his neck, warm and real. She was a precious skein of silk in his embrace- soft and yielding, but surprisingly strong.

His fingers wound to fists on her back as he wept. He clung to her as though he were a drowning man and she were a piece of driftwood floating among rapid currents.

Her fingers splayed across the coarse fibers of his vest clad shoulders. She felt them rise and fall on his endless tide of grief. She pressed herself close enough to inhale his fragrance of oily, unwashed flesh and hair, and to breathe the brandy on his breath.

At once, they felt the weakness in one another’s knees, but she was first to speak.

“Come and sit, please.”

He obeyed and followed her to the sofa where she settled him. “Another drink, perhaps?” He plead.

“You’ve already been drinking. Should you not have some food?”

“Oh, Vanessa, don’t be prim now.” She had somehow come up with a handkerchief which she passed to him and he applied to his nose. Certainly he should have offered it to her, however it seemed so unseemly to sit there with facial orifices dripping before her, and she sat so sweet and neat, he rationalized it appropriate to use it himself. She made the alcohol materialize before them along with two glasses. Somewhere within him, he was glad he should not drink alone. She poured for them both and then passed his glass to him. He allowed his fingers to graze hers as he accepted the glass. “I thank you,” he grumbled, and drank, as did she. He set his glass on the low table in front of the fire before them and tears began to fall again from his eyes, but he did not turn from her. Instead, he fell against her.

She knew he was intoxicated on not just alcohol, but also grief and rage and guilt. She knew it and she opened her arms to hold it all. She allowed him to fall against her. She kissed his brow and stroked his neck. She tossed back the dregs of her drink and leaned forward to set her glass on the table so she could use both hands to caress his sorry, savage self.

“I’ll give you anything,” he slurred. “Jewels, art, anything. Just please don’t leave me.”

“Hush now,” she admonished. “I already told you I would not leave.” She clutched his head to her breast. She ruffled his hair with her fingers and kneaded the flesh of his neck. She allowed her hands to say things her lips could not.

He sat up slightly to look at her and began, “Do you remember,” and then again his voice failed him.

“Yes,” she wept. She swallowed hard, wanting for everything to be strong but finding herself failing. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I remember everything.”

If they could have, they would have wished to turn to stone so their embrace might never have ended, so fiercely they held one another then and there. When at last they released their grip on one another, it was to fall against the back of the sofa, still close to one another, her head on his shoulder.

“Are you hungry? Shall I have Sembene bring us food?” Sir Malcolm asked.

“Not particularly. Although I suppose we both should eat,” Vanessa replied. She put her arm through his and floated there with him on the tide of grief. “Really, I am just so tired.”

“Have you slept?”

“No. Have you?”

“No. I see her face. The black eyes that were not hers. I close my eyes in exhaustion and see these things and they spring open again. I suppose it is not normal.”

“I do not know what that is. Normal. I wish I could say,” she tipped her face up toward his. “I wish I could.”

He glanced down upon her. “You are so different,” he murmured and she felt his breath on her forehead. Her hair had come loose from its updo, and with a curious finger, he twirled a lock of it. “With this wild, raven hair and your fierce blue eyes. You’ve never been anything of this world, and certainly not anything of my world, and yet you are the daughter I deserved, perhaps.” He sighed heavily and allowed his head to fall back against the sofa.

Vanessa stiffened then softened. She stroked the side of his face. “ I must tell you something now, or I might never say it,” she said.

“Yes?”

He peered into her as she cupped his face in both of her hands. She felt the scruff of his beard and the bone of his jaw and chin. Their foreheads were close, nearly touching. “I do not want, I have never wanted to be your daughter,” she whispered. Her breath hovered between them like a moth before it fluttered off to be absorbed by the fire or by the darkness, neither could say. “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he whispered in the only voice he had left to him.

The fire crackled and popped but neither of them were startled, as they were suddenly too dazed by one another and by the exhaustion of the emotional loads they had carried for so very long. Against one another, they rested, weary travelers, before the warmth of their fire. For a long time, they stayed just like that.

“It grows late,” she said at last. “I believe I will try to get some rest now.”

“Yes, my dear. You should do that. You should rest.”

“Will you stay up?”

“I might work at this a bit longer, yes,” he said, but he made no movements and neither did she. In fact, she seemed to nestle closer into his side and put her head on his chest.

“I must admit I am mightily relieved you are not returning to Africa. I prefer to have you here with me. I fear I’d be lost without you,” she said against his chest. “We shall learn to be kind to one another, shall we not?”

“We shall learn to know one another well.” His voice sounded deep beneath her ear.

“Perhaps you will not find me as intriguing as your river, but we might find some interests to share.”

“Vanessa, you are no river and you will never be any river.” He pushed her away from him but only so he could study her face once again. He brought his hand to her chest and laid it lightly over her heart, and then tilted his head slightly and blinked when he’d assured himself it still beat. “You are the deep and endless ocean where I come to unravel at the very end of everything.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but found herself quite mute. And although she was utterly surprised by his words, she was strangely not surprised at all when he covered her half open mouth with his own lips.


End file.
